GCU Students give musicians the chance to perform in a live virtual charity event

GCU Students give musicians the chance to perform in a live virtual charity event

A group of GCU students have come together to host a unique virtual event - giving musicians in Scotland a chance to perform and showcase their talents in front of a live audience.

GCU International Tourism and Event Management students are setting up a virtual stage for artists to perform as well as raising money for The Kris Boyd Charity.

Ellie Cunningham, Ruth Findlay, Emily Wilson, Emma Whitehead, Seb Nicol, Malcolm McNicol and Fatme Shabanova have been challenged to host a charity event as part of their Event Delivery and Management module.

Second year student Ellie explained the group’s aims in carrying out this project. She said;

“It’s been interesting having to take on this part of the course whilst we’re still in full lockdown but although it’s been difficult, it’s encouraged us to think outside of the box.

There’s a lot of virtual events going on so we wanted to try and think of something a little bit different.

Our idea came from an event that Celtic Connections have put on in the past where the artists that came to perform on the night didn’t actually know who else was going to be playing.

So, we wanted to create something where people are hearing all different types of sounds that they’ve maybe never heard of before.

For our event, everyone will actually know who is playing, but we really wanted a diverse range of Scottish based up-and-coming musicians who haven’t been given the opportunity or the platform to showcase their music in the past year.”

As part of their assignment, the group have also had to choose a charity where they will donate a percentage of their ticket sales to.

Ellie explained how the team chose to fundraise on behalf of The Kris Boyd Charity. She said;

“We did a survey prior to our event to decide on a charity.

We had a look at the Kris Boyd Charity and it just kind of fit – we all wanted to choose a mental health charity because we feel like it’s just such a prevalent thing right now.

So I guess part of our event is trying to give people something fun to go to where they can just have a relaxed night full of really good music.”

Students’ projects for this module would have of course looked a lot different pre-covid but Ellie explained how her group are grateful to still be able to get involved in this type of event management work during these strange times. She said;

“We all just assumed, before starting this semester, that we wouldn’t be organising an event so it is quite exciting having something like this to do.

It’s a really amazing opportunity to have.”

Find out more about Live and Direct and how to get tickets on the group’s Facebook page.

By Rebecca Meechan.

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